Many plastic materials, including polyvinylchloride (PVC), have a wide variety of uses, including as surface coverings. For many applications, plastic materials can be made softer and more flexible through the use of plasticizers. In particular, phthalates have long been used as plasticizers in PVC and other plastics.
Phthalates, such as di-(-2-ethylhexyl)phthalate and butyl benzyl phthalate have come under increased scrutiny for a variety of reasons, including their reliance on petroleum-based feedstocks for production.
Some plasticizers based on non-petroleum feed stocks are known, including those based on vegetable oils, including soy, castor oil, and acetyl tributyl citrate. Other non-petroleum plasticizers include those derived from natural sugars, such as sorbitol and mannitol and those that are based on diesters of linear aliphatic hydrocarbons.
Generally, availability of non-phthalate and non-petroleum based plasticizers would permit expanded and/or new utilities and performance in known and new applications.
It would be desirable to increase the available types of non-petroleum plasticizers and particularly to develop new non-petroleum based plasticizers, including some that are useful in floor tiles and other surface coverings.
A biobased plasticizer and a surface covering plasticized by a biobased plasticizer that do not suffer from one or more of the above drawbacks would be desirable in the art.